AdBlue in a Diesel Tank in Llanmorlais: How It Occurs and How to Avoid It
Keep the motor and ignition off then ring 0333 366 0103 now — reading can wait when AdBlue is already in your diesel tank. Usually, when your motor has not run, it is emptied and fully flushed where your car is around Llanmorlais. The rest of this page covers why it happens and how to ensure it doesn't — handy if you're reading before it has happened.
AdBlue in a diesel motor: two tanks, two fillers
Plenty of newer diesels around Pen-clawdd, like those in Llanmorlais, run on two fluids; the engine gets just your diesel. AdBlue goes to your exhaust, where it is sprayed into the gas to clean it, and it lives in a tank of its own.
Each tank has its own filler. Under one flap, side by side: that's the arrangement on a lot of motors. Elsewhere, AdBlue's filler is under the bonnet or in your boot instead. Diesel goes in on each filling station call-out, week in, week out. The AdBlue side is fuelled far less often, normally from a bottle, and normally by someone who has to stop and think where it goes. The mistake grows in the gap between the two.
How AdBlue in the diesel tank happens in Llanmorlais
Three things tend to line up, and carelessness is rarely one of them.
First, the warning. Low AdBlue triggers a warning from your car, and running out leads to limp mode — so a rushed top-up, perhaps before work off Station Road, perhaps outside The Crofty Inn on the way home that evening.
New-to-you vehicles are second, too. Rentals, new cars and company cars place their fillers in new places, and habit reaches for the cap used on the old one.
And the bottle fits. A bottle with a spout goes into a diesel filler as easily as an AdBlue one, and so nothing stops the tip once it has started. The same few seconds settle it, in the middle of Llanmorlais or out in Crofty.
The AdBlue filler and your diesel filler: telling them apart
Look at these first, at a forecourt in Llanmorlais or a drive out in Parc-hendy. Seconds, that's all.
- Where it sits misleads; the cap doesn't. AdBlue ones tend to be blue or carry the name "AdBlue" — diesel caps usually do not.
- On many cars, size gives it away: AdBlue gets the smaller filler neck.
- Look inside the fuel flap: plenty of cars carry a label there showing which fuel goes where.
- The handbook. If your filler is not by your diesel cap, it's in your boot or under the bonnet, and the handbook says which.
- Whoever had it before knows. Ask as you pick up a hire car or company car — at Bynea's car park, say — rather than once the light comes on.
How to top up without AdBlue in your diesel tank
A routine for the day the light comes on, wherever in Swansea that is.
- Park then switch off. Not on a slope, not with your engine running, and not in a rush on the side of Riverside.
- Find the AdBlue filler and read the cap. Say "AdBlue" out loud as you unscrew it. It sounds silly and it works.
- The two behind one flap? So make sure the lid on the diesel side is still shut before raising the bottle.
- Pour slowly, using the bottle's own spout. Stop when it's full or when the bottle is empty.
- Only then, start your car: close the cap, check again, and make sure the diesel cap was never opened.
If at stage two or three you find you have already poured into the diesel side, stop there. Stage five is out.
Put AdBlue in your diesel tank in Llanmorlais already?
Short list, then. First: your engine stays unstarted. Don't switch your ignition on; on many diesels that alone runs the fuel pump. Thinning it with extra diesel won't work, since AdBlue settles to the bottom rather than mixing — and that is where your fuel is drawn from.
Ask the attendants to help roll the car away from the petrol pump if you are on a forecourt — the North Road Service Station, the Esso or anywhere else. If you are on your own driveway in Llanmorlais, leave the vehicle where it is.
If the motor has already run, stop as soon as it is safe and switch off. Llanmorlais sits under 10 miles from the M4; there, take the next junction. Tell us about how far it went: a run towards Swansea, under 10 miles away, is a bigger job than a short hop across Llanmorlais.
When our engineers turn up around Llanmorlais, what occurs?
Our van comes to the car wherever it stopped — your own drive, beside Gower Fresh Christmas Trees, or outside the local primary school. Which fluid was put in, the amount, and whether it ran: our technicians ask since the answers set the work and price. During the phone call itself, you hear our quote — ahead of dispatch.
The fuel system is then flushed thoroughly, after the tank is emptied. With AdBlue that matters more than with petrol: it crystallises and is corrosive to some of the metals in a fuel system, so it does not wash out on its own. Once the fuel filter is cleaned — or renewed, where needed — fresh diesel is added, and then your car is tested. Before we go, we fire it up and make sure that it's running smoothly.
Unstarted cars usually mean a half-hour job from the moment we arrive. The equipment is safe on a live filling station, and hushed enough for a residential street late at night. No money in advance; you settle up that day. At the end, the VAT invoice and the report from the engineer are handed to you for the insurer. Misfuelling cover is part of many insurance policies — so make use of the wait to look at yours.
About Llanmorlais, for a moment
Llanmorlais is a small coastal village in Swansea, situated near the shores of the Bristol Channel at an elevation of around 15 metres. Llanmorlais has a mix of housing types, but detached homes are particularly prevalent in the area. Llanmorlais is located close to nearby places such as Crofty and Pen-caer-fenny, and is within a short distance of the city of Swansea.
AdBlue drains about Llanmorlais, and Swansea beyond
Pen-caer-fenny and Rallt are among the places near Llanmorlais, a coastal village, that the same teams cover, throughout SA postcodes. Quote a postcode that starts SA4 3, and the van arrives quickest.
Shifting the vehicle is not necessary. A drive, a lay-by on the way to Forest Common, a side street near Cilifor Top Hillfort: our engineers drain it where it is. If you're close to a border, or somewhere hard to describe like the back of Canoe Safari, ring and ask rather than guessing.
The short version for Llanmorlais motorists
Pour no AdBlue until you've read the cap. Petrol in Diesel drains it on the spot, anywhere in Swansea, if AdBlue has gone in the diesel tank all the same — and so leave it off then ring 0333 366 0103.